GETTING TO KNOW

Guillermo Cazon/ INTERVIEW

• National physical education teacher • Physical trainer of the Argentinean men's handball team. • Professor at the Universidad del Salvador in the degree of physical activities and sports. • Physical education coordinator at La Salle School in Buenos

Aires. • Handball physical trainer at Club Atletico River Plate

First of all, greet all readers and subscribers, a great joy to be able to transmit a li]le of what happens to us in Argen-na handball, I am very grateful to the Handheartball School editorial for the invita-on and to start with this li]le interview.

§ We know your beginnings in the spor1ng world started in rugby and currently you are in

a team, when did you start in the world of handball and why?

My beginnings as a youngster were in various sports in my school, but the sport that I started playing before starNng with handball was rugby, which I played in my club and licle by licle through a friend from my school in the INEF number 2 in Salta (ArgenNna), he insisted that I play handball, I was a very good goalkeeper in football and so I started as a handball goalkeeper in my school and licle by licle I found the taste and passion for a sport that today has meant a lot to me in all my sporNng career as well as in my professional career.

§ What does the gladiators and the figure of Manolo Cadenas mean to you in recent years? The significance of the gladiators of our ArgenNnean Handball team is very important, but this started many years ago with Dady Gallardo who was the manager and the one who insNlled in us everything that today we are the gladiators, today we are a conNnuaNon of the whole process that Dady did, who is also my friend, he is my brother, he is someone very important in my life, besides having had the pleasure of working together, we are great friends, In fact we work in our club in River Plate (Club AtleNco River Plate) and also to be today next to Manolo sharing this work, it is also important because he is also a reference of Spanish Handball, but well the importance of this solidity that we have "the gladiators" is due to this previous process that Dady insNlled in us and today it is as if it were a legacy that we have to preserve, that methodology, that system, being a pleasure to work now with Manolo.

The body of the previous process is Guillermo, Doctor Carlos Marino and myself, who are the ones who remain from that process, which is a process of many years and an important conNnuity, and I am very happy to be able to conNnue carrying out this work.

§ What is the physical prepara1on of a na1onal team before a championship such as a

World Cup or an Olympic Games?

Before, most of the players were in ArgenNna and that meant that we had a relevant and important work in the consistency of the physical part but as Nme has gone by and the players have been and are being observed at world level, with most of the players in Europe, then what we try to do is constant communicaNon with the coaching staff, with the players, to know how they are in their physical aspect and when we meet again, which is not much Nme we someNmes have, we must try to keep the work matrix with which they come from their teams to adapt to the work we do, To know how they are in their physical aspect and when we meet again, which is not much Nme someNmes, we must try to keep the work matrix with which they come from their teams to adapt to the work that is required for an important tournament, whether it is a World Cup or now that we are going to be in the Olympic Games and we will have much more Nme to prepare, in previous tournaments we have also had the players with a greater margin of Nme which allows us to solidify and have more consistency in the physical aspects. But fundamentally, it happens to us that the players who come from Europe, someNmes arrive with a lot of games, with a lot of physical work, with a lot of faNgue or some players with physical problems, what we try to do with the doctor Carlos Marino is to recover those players and try to get them back in shape, that is the most important work that we do in the selecNon, In some players we try to make the necessary adjustments so that when the coach needs them, they are at his disposal, it is a very thorough job, working on all the specific details of each player and with the main objecNve of trying to re-establish their physical shape so that they are in the best possible shape for the compeNNon and for what the coach needs.

§ You worked as a physical trainer for several years with Hindú Club rugby un1l you

dedicated yourself fully to the physical prepara1on of handball in River and from there the jump to the Argen1ne na1onal team where you have been part of the coaching staff for 10 years, tell me some anecdotes in that period of 1me?

If I was working for a long Nme in other sports, what happened is that I am from the province of Salta (ArgenNna), which is a province located in the North of ArgenNna, I came at the age of eighteen called for the selecNon of ArgenNna in the posiNon of goalkeeper, afer a NaNonal tournament, the coach at that Nme was a coach of River Plate, Victor Bloise, invited me to play in River Plate, at that Nme I started to work in addiNon to playing in my club, conNnuing with the work of physical trainer at this Nme, combining it with the studies of physical preparaNon, which made me work in many clubs, with Hindú Club, in hockey, in football, working in many sports, I ended up working on physical preparaNon in handball as I was working, I played in the first team of River, when I stopped playing, that's a good anecdote, "the one who told me not to play handball at forty years old, forty-one years old, was Dady, I said to myself "Black" you've come this far in your career" and at that Nme I started to work on physical preparaNon with him and we went with the River team to two tournaments in Europe, There are many anecdotes, but I think it is irrelevant, but the best of all is to conNnue with the work of the naNonal team and the most beauNful thing that happened to us is to have qualified for the first Nme for the Olympic Games, afer the tournament in Guadalajara.

§ In other sports such as basketball, coaches say that the key in this type of tournament is

rota1on. How do you manage the physical condi1on of the team so that they arrive in the best possible condi1on at the end of the tournament?

One of the important aspects and characterisNcs as I was telling you before, everything we have learned over the years, is that the coaching staff has to be aware of how each athlete, each player, is doing constant consultaNons with the medical staff, with the assistant coach, with the coach and even talk a lot with the players, We have a lot of dialogue with the players to know what is their percepNon of faNgue, Nredness, injury and it is at that moment that we provide the specific care for each player, of course rotaNon is very important, especially in this sport like Handball which today has a lot of intensity, It works with a lot of power, works with a lot of speed and that makes the physical wear is intense, then to try to have these players at 100% is necessary that we are very acenNve and in a constant dialogue to be preserving and preserving that form, because in a tournament, the games are conNnuous, That's why the communicaNon between the coach and the whole technical staff is very important, helping us to have that percepNon in order to be able to strengthen the players to be in the necessary shape and to be able to develop all those sporNng abiliNes in the team.

§ Which interna1onal team do you see as physically superior to the rest? There are many teams, which one has as a reference, I have learned a lot from the physical preparaNon of the French, I have as a reference to Alan Cantale, who was physical trainer of France, a friend who has also come to ArgenNna and I have learned a lot from him, he has marked me many guidelines of French Handball, As well as the former coach of France Didier Dinart and player who has marked me a lot in learning what happens in the heads of the players, but well I like the strength that the French have, I really like the potenNal that has the team of Denmark, in the physical volume of size and coordinaNon and speed they have throughout their system, Norway also has a physical potenNal, so does the Spanish team and there are many teams, but in general, we are learning a lot from European Handball, most of the teams in Europe have a very big potenNal, because the physical size is also very important, For us it is a big difficulty because our players are not big physically and that makes us have to work with much more speed, with much more acceleraNon to be able to break many defensive systems, but in reality one tries to learn from everything, talk and observe, I am a person who when I go to the World Cup or go to different games, I try to ask as much as possible. In Spain I have another reference who is Paco Seirulo who I have also had the good fortune to meet and talk to him a lot, and also learn a lot, the main thing about them is that they have a great humility that has stopped to talk and try to learn as much as possible from all the great coaches and physical trainers that the world has. The Swedes I can also tell you about Mac Olson, Edvenson, people you talk to, listen to and learn from, I think that's very important, that you constantly keep your head open to learn from the greats, I always say that, and have the humility to listen and have them all as references, from all of them we get a licle bit and today we have a style that I think is different from many teams, because of the acceleraNon we have, and because of those movements generally with a lot of acceleraNon that our teams have to beat teams that are much bigger than us.

§ In what period of training do you think it is key to start working on physical prepara1on,

including it in the planning and what percentage should be worked on per stage of training?

I think that physical preparaNon is really a personal appreciaNon of having worked in many sports, in football teams, I have had a great reference here in ArgenNna, I have worked in handball teams, in rugby teams, in hockey teams, I have had figure skaNng athletes, I have had roller hockey athletes, what I consider important is a word "movement", so in every process, an athlete has a process between 16 and 17 years of development, and we must observe another word which is the "process" being different stages that we have to go through respecNng the evoluNonary stages, respecNng the sensiNve stages, respecNng very much

The condiNon of these stages of development and movement is important because it is generated from the iniNaNon where the motor and psychomotor aspect is very important, where children have to learn to be aware of their own body schema, what their body can do, and then to have this dissociaNon, learn to dissociate those body elements that are going to give me a great motor richness and as they grow, conNnue working on the supports and that is where we start with the small work of strength, support work, pushing work, pulling work and as they develop all the technical aspects of movement (how to move, how to work in a unipodal way, bipodal), when they develop all the technical aspects of movement (how to move, how to work in a unipodal way, how to work in a bipodal way), when they develop all the technical aspects of movement (how to move, how to work in a unipodal way, bipodal), when the hormonal stage of 15, 16 and 17 years of age develops is when I start to plan, considering the beginning of the specific work of strength, then the progressive work of speed, but all the previous process is a process where I have to have a great wealth of movement, great motor wealth, a great knowledge of my body scheme, This is the most difficult job we have as physical trainers, because our mission is to re-educate and generate movement habits, respecNng these evoluNonary stages of development and the sensiNve stages, which will help us to ensure that the athlete, as he/she grows, will have the development that corresponds to him/her. But if I alter these processes and go over the top, I will have problems such as injuries, discomfort in athletes, which over Nme instead of strengthening them will diminish all these stages, which is why I believe that to strengthen this, progressive development has to be planned with clear objecNves and fundamentally respecNng the sensiNve stages of development.

§ When would you start strength

training at the grassroots level?

How much -me would a grassroots player have to invest on a weekly basis to grow to high performance?

As I said before, those skills that we have to work on, to carry out the exercises at this stage of development, to become aware of the body and all its segments, that dissociaNon that would be the independence of the different segments in relaNon to the trunk and between them, the body control.

Where we have to have balance exercises, perception and control of the body, then coordination work, general dynamic exercises, displacements and different amounts of jumps, having very clear is to respect these sensitive stages, to try to avoid injuries, respecting the stage of evolution, the work of laterality, There are authors who say that it is good to develop a laterality that is very affirmed and others in the multilateralism, depending on how each one is in order to work, all this we have to integrate it to the physical part, to the technical and tactical, always respecting the initiation stage, the sensitive stages, all with a lot of psychomotricity work, individual technique work and with an evolution we introduce ourselves in all the integral work.

§ As the physical trainer of the

Argentine handball team, what positive feelings do you take away from the last world championship held in Egypt?

The feeling is always good to have had the opportunity to go to another World Cup, although the feeling of this World Cup has been a strange feeling, because we were very close to being in a better position, although I think that helps the group and everyone to be thinking and consolidate more in what is coming which are the Olympic Games, I think that every tournament that we have, our team gladiators and Argentina, generates a great learning, always try to visualise the things we have not done well and try as much as possible to correct. On a personal level, I think that there are some things in the physical part that I would have to adjust in order for the team to have a better performance.

I have always done it and I believe that one has to be, always thinking about strengthening the team and trying to learn from these tournaments, to be able to minimise and work on the details that are going to correct so that the team can be becer, I believe that we have to correct, look, learn constantly, so that, God willing, in the Olympic Games, what we have to play, we can develop them in the best way and achieve the major objecNves that the team is aiming for.

IÑIGO CANTERO ARRIETA

SENIOR WOMEN'S TEAM COACH TERRITORIAL CATEGORY MALE CADET PERFORMANCE CATEGORY OF THE UROLA EK HANDBALL CLUB ZUMARRAGA (GIPUZKOA)

In these first exercises we are going to look for the blocking of the advanced player, which can be done in different ways (blocking the pivot, blocking one of the wingers or an outside player) so that once the blocking is done, we can conNnue with the acack and gain superiority.

Block by E for the benefit of the Centre-back (B). Pass from the fullback (A or C) to the centre-back (B) who takes advantage of the block by the pivot (E). To con-nue and make a 2x1 between Centre and Pivot.

The forward defender cannot go below 9 metres. We have to -me the block well with the Central defender's run, the pivot acer the block con-nues the ac-on.

Block by A for the benefit of the Central (B)

Pass from Central to Lateral who blocks the advanced player and makes a cross for the benefit of Central.

To conNnue and make a 2x1 between Central and Lateral.

The advanced defender cannot go below 9 metres.

We have to Nme the block well with the Central defender's run, the Lateral afer the block conNnues the acNon.

Block by Ext. (D) for the benefit of the Central (B).

The Extreme starts and passes to the fullback and goes to block the Centre-back.

The Centre-back takes advantage of the block and plays a 2 x1 between him and the fullback.

The forward defender cannot go below 9 metres.

We have to time the block well with the Central player's run, the winger after the block does not continue the action.

Central doubling.

We start from a 3x4 Central passes the ball to the fullback and then splits between 2 and 3.

Depending on what the advanced player does, in this case he will cover the right back.

We play the lef back if his defender doesn't come out or if not pass to the pivot or to the centre back who has split.

The acackers must read what the defender is doing to decide how to acack.

Variants: The lef back makes a cross with the right back blocking the forward.

Central doubling.

We start from a 4x4 Central passes the ball to the fullback and then splits between 2 and 3.

Depending on what the advanced player does, in this case he will cover the left wing.

We play the right back if his defender doesn't come out or if not, pass to the pivot or the centre back who has split.

The attackers must read what the defender is doing to decide how to attack.

Variants: The right back makes a cross with the left back blocking the forward.

Undoubling of the Lateral.

We start from a 4x4 Lateral with the ball passes to Central and unbends over his partner, and then conNnues to take advantage of the pivot's block and get a throw-in or a 2x1 with the right back.